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Red Sea
Barcelona, Spain
Its phenomenal reputation makes other cities positively green with envy, and bohemian Barcelona continues to top the popularity charts. * Stroll down the famous thoroughfare, Las Ramblas, stopping for coffee at a pavement café or to throw a couple of euros in street entertainers' hats. * Explore the winding streets of the Gothic quarter, taking your pick of traditional tapas bars. Among them is Els Quatre Gats, Picasso's old hangout. * Make a beeline for the Plaza de Catalunya and see amazing houses dreamed up by Gaudi, as well as his greatest work, the Sagrada Familia. * Call in at Nou Camp, home of Barcelona Football Club since 1957.
* Save some room on your camera for snaps of the Sphinx. Carved from a single ridge of stone, this massive sculpture has stood guard since 2500BC. * Explore the warren-like Egyptian Museum to see dust-caked antiquities, age-old mummies and the glorious treasures of Tutankhamun. * Admire the intricate artistry of the Sultan Hasan mosque, with its only minaret puncturing the cloudless canopy of sky above it. * Explore the spice-scented bazaars that are shoe-horned into the city's labyrinthine streets. Don't miss the bargain-hunter's paradise of Khan el-Khalili, a web of narrow alleyways crammed with haggle-happy copper, gold and silver sellers. * Finally, enjoy a cool drink overlooking the slow-moving waters of the Nile, watching as they idly follow their millennia-old course.
Cairo (from Port Said & Port Sokhna), Egypt
Nowhere on earth launches an all-out assault on the senses quite like Cairo. It's big, it's bustling and it's filled to bursting with age-old treasures from the times of the pharaohs. The first thing that'll strike you about Egypt's capital is the chaos - fast-moving traffic, beeping car horns, calls to prayer, haggling merchants. Everything's a blur, albeit an exciting one. The other thing you'll notice is the fusion of old with new. Traditional bazaars hung with copper-beaten lamps rub shoulders with glitzy, neon-lit shopping malls. There's nowhere like it. * It's Cairo's ancient history that sprinkles it with stardust. Venture to the outskirts to marvel at the deeply poignant Giza pyramids. These colossal man-made mountains will leave you with one question - how on earth did they build them?
Messina, Sicily
From the tangle of timeworn streets to the sickle-shaped harbour dotted with rustic trattorias, it's easy to see why Shakespeare chose Messina as the setting of his romantic play Much Ado About Nothing. * Be in Piazza del Duomo for 12 noon. Here, a Norman citadel houses the world's largest mechanical clock. At midday, gilt figures, including a roaring lion and a host of beautiful angels, emerge from the clock to re-enact the city's history. * Don't miss Sicily's star turn, Mount Etna. Europe's biggest active volcano, it's a contradiction in every sense - fiery and snowy, barren and lush, feared and loved. One of the best ways to see it is from the cutesy carriages of the Circumetnea Railway which follows a delightful route up along the slopes.
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